Peter Aronson wrote on Tue, Jun 13, 2006 01:02 AM UTC:
Curiously, the designer of the Dragons is a former TSR employee, and he probably knows that his former boss has a previous claim on the name Dragon Chess. I wonder if Lex Parker made any arrangement with Gary Gygax before trademarking the name of his well-known 3D Chess variant.
Actually, Fergus, it was the artist Jeff Easley who is the ex-TSR employee. The site doesn't say anything really about Parker. I don't think it even states outright who invented Dragon Chess, although it sort of implies Parker did. And in any case, I think you're underestimating how obscure Gygax's Dragon Chess would be to someone not on this site, although a quick Google would have turned it up if anyone bothered to look.
Greg, a quick and dirty calculation of how much the Dragon is worth on an 8x8 board, counting it as W + F + nD + nA + nH + nG (really abusing
Betza notation here) we end up with a value of roughly two Knights (2 half-Knights + four lame half-Knights (worth half for being lame)), which is interestingly the same ratio you got for the larger board.
Greg, a quick and dirty calculation of how much the Dragon is worth on an 8x8 board, counting it as W + F + nD + nA + nH + nG (really abusing Betza notation here) we end up with a value of roughly two Knights (2 half-Knights + four lame half-Knights (worth half for being lame)), which is interestingly the same ratio you got for the larger board.